Yes...Another Rant Book (OLD discontinued)

English Class

  I know what some of you may be thinking. "English class is important." It certainly hasn't felt like it lately, but there are some places where it's helpful. Learning how to write, learning grammar, sentence structure, and word choice. But you know what isn't useful? Being forced to read some boring-as-frozen-hell book from the 17th century and then having to do all this crap with it.

  These classes try to encourage us to read and appreciate literature. But guess what?  The only place I really hate reading in, is in English class. This class makes me despise reading to a point where I can't even remember liking it. Even if the book we're being forced to read is halfway decent, I end up hating it anyway because of all the work. They want us to "analyze" the writing and the author and every single line in the damn book!

  "What does Hamlet wearing blue pants have to say about his personality?" I don't know! Maybe he just happened to be wearing blue pants because he felt like it! Why does every single tiny description have to mean something? I highly doubt the author wanted to symbolize depression with blue pants. You know why I include descriptions? For the sake of the reader's imagination. That should be the first, and maybe only, reason for description. English teachers make us look for and analyze meanings that may not even be there in the first place!

   And these stupid little assignments, sweet lord above. "How do you think JoeBob will react to Billy Bo's death? Explain and use support from the text." Here's an idea: how about reading what happens next? Have a class discussion or something. Use verbal speech, talk about it. Why do I have to sit there and throw together some garbage about JoeBob's mental state?

   Books are works of art, and how art is interpreted depends on the person. Not how an English teacher tells you to interpret it with quotes from the text. Do you really think people looking at a painting would sit there like "how does this piece of art make you feel? use support from the image" No! You don't use support for something you feel. It's your interpretation and how you think the book will continue on. They don't even let us think for ourselves. We just have to sit, write papers, annotate the text, and answer a bunch of stupid questions about how Hamlet's blue pants represent his personality.

  Then we get to writing assignments. Either it's a character analysis or some random BS paper. The killers are the "persuasive research essays" which we write every single year in English class. No joke. We don't write expository essays or write creatively; everything we write has to be persuasive. Why exactly? These papers are completely and utterly pointless. If I write a paper about why we should let frogs have jobs, do they really think I'm going to change the mind of someone who doesn't think frogs should have jobs? If they feel that strongly about a topic, I will not, no matter how many facts, figures or reasons I have. It won't matter if I use logos, pathos, and ethos effectively. They will not change how they think because of some teenager's English paper!

  Half of these assignments don't even teach us how to write, or even remotely improve our writing in the slightest! I sit there, BS something, and then throw in some fancy vocabulary to make it sound intelligent. Then the teacher looks over it, writes in his/her stupid little red pen with comments like "this is not good support" "watch for 'being' verbs"

  That's another thing that pisses me off about that class. "Being" verbs, such as was, is, are, were, being, be, and am, are completely forbidden. Why? I don't know, something about the passive voice not being as impactful as an active voice or some crap. By the way bitches, I just used the word "being", arrest me. All your grades depend on that English teacher's mood and their opinions, not how much effort you put into the paper. Screw you English...